'BAGS: Emergent Personnel
Classification: EYES ONLY — ASSET MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE
Subject: Anomalous Capability Emergence in Field Personnel — Operational Implications and Recommended Protocols
Distribution: Handler Command, Medical Research Division, Personnel Pipeline Oversight
Reference: Project Tselostnost Continuity File / Incident Reports 7 through 23
This memorandum does not exist in the official record. It is distributed on a need-to-know basis to personnel whose operational responsibilities require awareness of the phenomenon described below. Recipients are reminded that unofficial documentation of Asset-adjacent personnel incidents carries its own liability classification.
If you are reading this without authorization, you have already been identified.
Section 1 — Background
Over the course of seventeen documented field operations, Medical Research Division has recorded a statistically anomalous pattern among support personnel attached to Unit Zero and analogous Asset management teams.
A subset of personnel who sustain critical physiological trauma in the field — specifically, those who are clinically non-viable for a period and subsequently recover — return from that recovery exhibiting capabilities outside the parameters of their original personnel assessment.
We are calling these personnel Emergent Assets for internal classification purposes.
We are not calling them this in any external documentation. They are still logged as support personnel. They are still logged as meatbags in the pipeline. This distinction is deliberate.
Section 2 — The Phenomenon
The capabilities are not trained. They are not induced through standard Tselostnost protocols. They emerge as a consequence of catastrophic physiological malfunction — specifically, the kind of malfunction that kills a person and then stops.
Medical Research Division's current hypothesis: the trauma does not unlock a latent capability. It is the capability. The malfunction is the mechanism. What emerges afterward is a symptom of the event, not a skill developed in response to it.
This is consistent with what we know of Asset biology, which we are not prepared to discuss in this memorandum.
Personnel who survive a Broken result in the field — who hit zero and come back — should be assessed immediately upon extraction. Roll d6 privately. On a 5 or 6, the malfunction found them. On anything else, they almost died and that is sufficient trauma for one operation.
Emergent personnel will know something has changed. They will not always know what.
The nosebleed is usually the first indicator.
Section 3 — Observed Capabilities
The following capabilities have been documented across Incident Reports 7 through 23. Costs listed reflect back-alley inductor rates for deliberate induction — included for reference only. We do not recommend deliberate induction in the field. We do not recommend deliberate induction at all. Personnel who seek induction independently are doing so outside organizational sanction and will be documented accordingly.
| Capability | Observed Effect | Induction Cost |
|---|---|---|
| MIND SPIKE | d4✱ psychic damage, automatic unless target is psi-trained, dying, or shielded | 100s |
| TK SHOVE | d6✱ physical damage, line of sight required | 200s |
| PYROKINESIS | d4 fire damage per round for d4 rounds | 400s |
| DREAM STAB | d8✱ — sleeping targets only; ignores armor, null collars, walls, distance, everything | 200s |
| PUPPET STRINGS | Control a body for d2 rounds. Using it as a shield or tool is automatic. Forcing survival-contrary action is tough. | 300s |
| FUTURE ECHO | Reroll any one die, including the GM's. Costs one nosebleed. | 200s |
| ANEURYSM | 2d10 — requires one full round of unbroken eye contact | 600s |
✱ PSI EXPLODES — maximum roll adds another die AND one nosebleed. The personnel may continue. Medical Research Division recommends they don't.
After every use: Roll d6. On a 1, capabilities are inaccessible for approximately one hour. This is not a malfunction. This is the system protecting itself.
Range: Effective range is conversational distance. Beyond that, the personnel is screaming into static. This limits operational utility and is considered a feature by Handler Command.
Section 4 — The Nosebleed Problem
Emergent personnel who begin field operations with a known capability carry one permanent nosebleed. This is non-negotiable. It is the cost of arriving already changed.
Personnel who emerge mid-operation begin clean. They will not remain clean.
Each nosebleed adds +2 DR to all psychic attempts. This is relevant. An emergent 'bag with two nosebleeds is operating at +4 DR on everything that isn't automatic. Automatic hits remain automatic. The system taxes precision, not violence.
At three nosebleeds, roll on the HEAD POP table immediately. Then clear all nosebleeds.
A night's rest clears all nosebleeds. A street dampener dose (15s) clears one but suspends capabilities for an hour. Handler Command maintains a dampener supply for exactly this reason.
Nosebleed accumulation rate in a standard operation: faster than personnel expect. The permanent nosebleed for pre-emergence 'bags means they arrive one bad roll from their second. Two uses of Psi Explodes from any starting point. Mid-operation emergence is cleaner but the session clock is shorter. In both cases, the third nosebleed will arrive. Plan accordingly.
Section 5 — HEAD POP
When this occurs, roll d4.
| d4 | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blackout for d4 rounds. Wake with d4 HP and one memory that isn't yours. Document the memory. Forward to Medical Research Division immediately. |
| 2 | Something bursts behind the eye. Roll d6: 1–5, lose the eye. 6, lose all capabilities for one day. The personnel is still deployable. Adjust accordingly. |
| 3 | Psychic haemorrhage. Death in d2 hours without intervention from another emergent personnel (Presence DR16 to clamp). All tests at DR16 the first hour, DR18 the last. This is survivable. Barely. |
| 4 | Total cranial event. Everyone nearby takes d6 damage and receives every memory the personnel ever had. The personnel does not survive this. Roll Replacement Flesh. Whatever arrives next has seen things they cannot explain and will not discuss. |
Section 6 — The Asset Interaction Protocol
This section is classified above the standard distribution of this memorandum. If you have received this document without Handler Command clearance, stop reading.
Several incidents have been documented in which emergent personnel attempted psychic contact with the Asset during field operations.
We are not able to explain the results fully. We are able to document them.
The Asset does not have a psychic profile in any conventional sense. It does not register as a mind. It does not register as an absence. It registers as something for which emergent personnel have no framework, and the act of reaching for that something is sufficient to trigger HEAD POP regardless of nosebleed count.
The Asset is not defending itself. It is not aware of the attempt. The emergent personnel are not receiving the Asset's thoughts. They are receiving the cognitive equivalent of staring into something that has no edges and cannot be grasped, and the mind that reaches in does not come back the same way it left.
Result 1 on HEAD POP — one memory that isn't yours — is the most common outcome of Asset contact attempts. Medical Research Division has been cataloguing these memories for three operations. They do not match any timeline we have documentation for.
Protocol: Emergent personnel are not to attempt psychic contact with the Asset under any circumstances. This protocol will not be explained to them in these terms. They will be told it is an equipment interference issue.
They will attempt it anyway. Document the result.
Section 7 — Operational Implications
Emergent personnel represent our best and worst resource simultaneously.
Best: An asymmetric capability the opposing organization has not briefed for. A Handler who no longer requires comms equipment. A Scrounger who can move a hostile through a door without burning another role's action. A Medic whose capabilities extend significantly beyond field surgery. Outcomes the mission parameters did not anticipate and which the opposing team cannot counter without preparation they do not have.
Worst: A second uncontrollable variable in an environment that already contains the Asset. Emergent personnel do not follow the Asset's protocols. They do not have protocols. They have a capability they have held for somewhere between forty minutes and three weeks, a nosebleed that may or may not be permanent, and an operational context that does not pause to let them understand what has happened to them.
Handler Command's position: emergent personnel are to be extracted, assessed, and redeployed. They are not to be informed of their classification change. They are still logged as support personnel. The folder still has a number. The number has simply become more interesting.
The organization does not retire promising developments. It deploys them again.
Section 8 — Personnel Starting Conditions
Personnel may enter the field in one of three states:
Standard 'bag: No psi capability. No nosebleeds. This is the baseline. In a room with emergent personnel, mundane is a tactical position. The Null Collar (200s) is recommended standard kit.
Pre-emergent 'bag: Has died once before this operation. Carries one random capability and one permanent nosebleed. They know what they are. They have not been told what the organization knows about what they are. The distinction is deliberate.
Mid-operation emergence: A standard 'bag sustains a Broken result and survives. Roll d6 privately. On a 5 or 6, the malfunction finds them. They receive one random capability (d8; on an 8, the GM invents something worse) and begin with no nosebleeds but considerably less time than a pre-emergent 'bag to understand what they're carrying.
The Replacement Flesh entry for emergent personnel:
Woke up wrong after the last operation. The organization considers this a promising development. The 'bag does not.
Section 9 — Gear
| Item | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| NULL COLLAR | Capabilities off while worn — yours or theirs. Standard kit recommendation for non-emergent personnel. | 200s |
| DAMPENER DOSE | Clears one nosebleed. No capabilities for an hour. Handler Command carries these. | 15s |
| TINFOIL HAT | Psychic attempts against the wearer are always tough. You both look like idiots. | 5s |
Section 10 — A Note on the Clock
Emergent personnel who use capabilities in lieu of mission objectives are contributing to Clock advancement as surely as any other delay. Psychic violence is not the mission. The mission is the mission. The Asset handles violence at a scale that makes emergent capability look like a lit match next to a burning building.
The Clock does not care about nosebleeds. It cares about the objective.
Emergent personnel who understand this are valuable. Emergent personnel who don't are a different kind of problem and are accounted for in the pipeline.
Section 11 — Final Note
The phenomenon is accelerating. Seventeen incidents across three years of documented operations. The rate is not stable. Medical Research Division's projection, which Handler Command has reviewed and declined to distribute broadly, suggests the rate of mid-operation emergence correlates with proximity to the Asset over time.
The Asset has been in these operations for longer than any of the support personnel. Longer than any of the organizations managing the support personnel. Something in prolonged proximity to the Asset is doing something to the people proximate to it.
We do not know if the Asset is aware of this.
We do not know if aware is the right word for whatever relationship the Asset has with the phenomenon.
We are documenting it. The record exists. Someone will read it.
— AMD Internal Review, undated
This supplement requires 'BAGS and the MÖRK BORG core rules. Third Eye Borg rules are reproduced and adapted under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License with the kind acknowledgment of The Grey Ledger Society's original work.
'BAGS: Emergent Personnel is an independent production by The Grey Ledger Society and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License. MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell.
The Grey Ledger Society + CGCG Helix = CC BY-SA 4.0